NEW DELHI: A combative Narendra Modi targeted the Congress brass at a massive rally in Delhi on Sunday, mocking and lashing out at the ruling party's leaders by turns in a speech that appeared to aim at the 2014 parliamentary polls as much as the upcoming Assembly polls.

Modi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat chief minister, took swipes at Congress scionRahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit even as he expressed indignation at what he said was a derogatory remark made by Singh's Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

Speaking for over an hour at the Japanese Park in northwest Delhi's Rohini, Modi exhorted the audience to throw out the Congress' "dirty team" that was deeply entrenched in corruption and bring in his "dream team".

"How can you expect the world to respect the prime minister when his party's crown prince describes him as 'nonsense'," Modi said, referring to Gandhi's severe public criticism on Friday of the ordinance on convicted legislators. "Congress ke vice-president ne PM ki pagdi uchhaal di (Congress vice-president has insulted the prime minister)," he said and asked whether the country should run on the whims of the "shehzada (crown prince) or the constitution.

Amid intermittent rounds of applause, Modi, speaking just hours before Singh's meeting with Sharif in the US, said, "I wonder if he (Singh) will meet the Pakistan PM confidently today...I wonder if the PM will be able to ask him when Pakistan will stop aiding terrorism...I don't know if he will ask when Pakistan is going to return PoK...I wonder if the PM will be able to question Sharif on soldiers who are brutally killed." Modi also criticised the prime minister for "prostrating himself in front of Obama — marketing India's poverty". "He should have stood tall and said we are a young country — what a shame. This poverty you speak of, Mr PM, is it a state of mind — the way the shahzada described it — or is it about the poverty in our streets?" he asked.

The BJP's prime ministerial candidate also asked the Congress' partners in the ruling coalition whether they were comfortable working with the party scion, making use of NCP leader Praful Patel's reported unease over Gandhi's outburst.